Efforts surrounding the development of computer software are often met with significant obstacles including the identification and correction of software “bugs” (e.g. errant software code). These “bugs” effect the operation and intended function(s) of the computer software and require significant expenditure of resources (e.g. time and labor) to find a correct. The practice of finding “bugs” is known as software “debugging”. Debugging takes on many forms, from the simple or facile, such as, manually reviewing software code in an effort to find the errant code, to the complex and automated, wherein another computer application, known as a debugger, operates on and executes software code in a “step by step” basis to assist developer in identifying the bugs.
Currently, debugging applications are equipped to execute process threads. In operation, the steps of the processes are executed on a step-basis so that the process execution may be observed and subsequently modified if the process is not executing properly or the process is not performing the intended function(s)/operations(s). In the context of a computing environment executing one thread, current practices are adequate to assist in the detection of bugs and serve developers and administrators, alike, in correcting outstanding execution, function, and/or operation problems.
However, current practices do not generally allow for the debugging of logically related processing threads that range from single process, multi-thread applications to multi-machine, multi-process systems. Specifically, current practices do not contemplate stepping between logically related physical threads and/or do not provide the ability to show the relationship (e.g. in the form of the call stack) between physical threads. With these added abilities, more complicated multi-process, multi-thread environments may be more easily debugged.
From the foregoing, it is appreciated that there exists a need for a system and methods that ameliorate the shortcomings of existing practices.